Prince of Asturias Awards 1981–2014. Speeches

2 O viedo | C ampoamor T heatre | 5 th O ctober 1985 I am the first person born in Asturias to receive one of the Prince of Asturias Awards. Owing to that circumstance, I may be forgiven for making a specific reference to Asturias, a land that one day long ago, sixty years ago now, I first saw as a compendium and image of the whole earth. If the fact of having been born here, in this city, in Oviedo, has significance for me, it is because it was in fact the world that came to me precisely in this place, materializing before my astonished infant eyes as an unprecedented and magical apparition. Here in Asturias, I first saw all the wonders of the universe that are within our reach: mountains and rivers, the sea, animals and plants, the sky and the rain —especially the rain–. Here I discovered the meaning of love, even more valuable when its light stood out against the sombre background of misery and hatred. Here I became acquainted with not only the beauty of the earth, but also the great human virtues: the solidarity, selflessness, generosity and dedication of men determined to fight for justice and freedom. Everything I saw and lived later, in my adulthood, never ceased to be a mere representation of that first, striking presence: the virginal appearance of the world that was indelibly etched in my spirit as an inevitable reference to understand the totality of things and events which life was to confront me with later. Latin America and Spain have experienced a truly unique historical relationship. Colonized by Spain, we have fought against that colonial situation, in a struggle which, strictly speaking, did not seem to be considered as a conflict between the two peoples, but as a battle between political philosophies that fought each other in the domestic sphere of both peoples. Our wars of independence were part of an ideal struggle against absolutismwhich was also being fought within Spain itself. The outline of a struggle between colonizers and the colonized, which could have pitted us against each other, was diluted in a battle of principles which, to the contrary, brought us together. We were not peoples who fought each other, but peoples who were enduring parallel processes of internal conflicts. Hence, both in the colonial period and in that of independence, Spain was a constant reference point for us, though not always of the same sign. We are associated with you, hence, in one and the same cultural dialectic. There is a global Spanish-American culture that is common to our mistakes and our successes, our setbacks and our progress. Is a greater degree of identification conceivable between two peoples? We are also joined by the common conviction that the democratic systemwill be incomplete and unstable as long as it lacks a basis of social justice, which means not only equitable distribution of wealth, but also framing this distribution within a production system that is effective in generating wealth to distribute. Spain today demonstrates a thoughtful effort to harmonize these objectives, which is a sign not only of political mastery, but also of willingness to renew its own culture. It can be said that such renovation is also our focus, aimed at the twofold objectives of moralizing and rationalizing relationships between man and his environment, on the one hand, bringing down unjust privileges and, on the other, overcoming the ideological immobility that impedes the perception of reality in a process of change. Raul Alfonsín Foulkes was President of Argentina from 1983 to 1989. — Excerpt from the speech given on the occasion of receiving the Prince of Asturias Award for Ibero-American Cooperation on 5/10/1985. Excerpt from the speech given on the occasion of receiving the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature on 5/10/1985. Laureates. Excerpts Ángel González — Prince of Asturias Award for Literature 1985 Raúl Alfonsín Foulkes — Prince of Asturias Award for Ibero-American Cooperation 1985